Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

100 t CHAPTER FIVE
difference. Like the suras themselves, the verses vary in length, but
in many instances they appear to be more natural units than the
suras since numerous verses are end-rhymed and conform to a
rhythmical pattern, whereas many suras seem to be composite,
with different elements simply assembled into a whole.
Scripture: A History
Islam is reckoned, along with Judaism and Christianity, as a scriptural
religion, that is, all three affirm the existence and their
possession of a divine revelation in written form. “The Sacred
Writings,” “The Scripture,” or “The Book” are practically interchangeable
terms among the three communities, and their adherents
can all be identified in some sense as “People of the Book,” as
the Muslims do in fact call them. The history of the three Scriptures
in question shows marked differences, however. In the Jewish—and
Christian and Muslim—view, God gave, and Moses
wrote down, a distinct and discrete multipart book, the Law or
Torah. But though the Torah holds pride of place in Jewish revelational
history, God’s direct interventions were in one manner or
another continuous between Moses at the beginning and Daniel at
the end of the Bible. Thus the Jewish Scripture is a collective work
that includes, under the three headings of “Law,” “Prophets,” and
the miscellany called “Writings,” all of God’s revelations to his
people.
This was certainly the Jewish view in Jesus’ day, when the community
was coming to consensus on what was the Bible and what
was not, and there is no reason to think that Jesus regarded Scripture
any differently. He produced no new Writings or Book of his
own, and so Christian Scripture is formally quite different from
what the Jews thought of as such. The Gospels are accounts of
Jesus’ words and deeds set down, in approximately a biographical
framework, by his followers. In the eyes of Christians, Jesus did
not bring a Scripture; he was himself, in his person and message, a
revelation, the “Good News.” His life and sacrificial death sealed a